This year we were not alone.
In convoy by car,
and now on a lower path,
past the ruined cottages
with their sagging brickwork
past redemption,
we had formed a line
******* a hedged path
towards a distant wood.

And all the while a child,
a child we loved and cared for,
savaged anything in reach
with a pair of sticks.

As a delicate rain fell,
the aggressive shout
of wood on wood.
numbed the senses.
There seemed no end
to this wanton litany of
violence and aggressive hurt.

For an hour or more this child,
this child we loved and cared for,
had been denied the living world
of the backlit screen.

Was there really nothing worthy
of attention here? So dull and damp
and dreary were these empty fields,
this persistent woodland.